Okay, there was a 17 page spread in Famitsu this week, basically covering all the old info but with comments from the staff included. I know one topic was made on this already but under GameFAQs law people will only see your info if you post a new topic with it in the title! so I thought I would do a more compete job of info that is actually new and interesting.
I won't translate it all, just bullet points of some of the good stuff. I'll be playing the game rather than posting about it after it comes out, so thought it might be nice to do something as a final contribution.
* Difficulty
P Principle of gathering more player putting you at an advantage remains. Everything can be soloed, and with 2 cats it might seem easier than before. If you want to make it more difficult play without cats.
* Warning Battles
There are conditions that have to be fulfilled for the monster to appear. You can see when starting the quest if a monster can possibly appear or not. Even if you prepare to fight it, it might not show if you can't fulfill the conditions (details of which aren't given). Time is reset to 50 mins and new items sent to the item box; if the time carried over they would have had to have change the strength of the monsters, and they wanted to make them strong. You can think of it like a "bonus stage", however; you can fail or retire and it still counts as having completed the original quest, and you still get items and credit for that part of it.
* Guild Card
There are 14 poses you can choose for your hunter to appear in on the Guild Card. More detailed information is also displayed now, including not only how many times you have used each weapon but also the times you have used it in the Training Hall. The badge for carrying over P2G data is in the form of the weapon you used the most, and it shows playtime, quests cleared and uses for that weapon. NOTE - This means if you care about getting all the badges you will need a Japanese P2G game data.
* Hot Spring
Splitting of HP / Stamina up and skills by hot spring water / drinks has already been mentioned; when using the spring in multi-player, the highest quality of water from among the players will be used, allowing beginners to get a nice boost and making it easier to take them along. Someone in the other thread said quality decreases each time you use the baths; of course it doesn't. But you need to complete quests to raise the quality, and these obviously aren't all there at the start of the game.
* Cats Overall
Cat attack has not really been increased; but they make better use of chances now, and with two of them along as well, they make more of a difference.
* Cat Armor
They made it easy to make on purpose, allowing you to make a lot and experiment quite freely with it.
* Cat Stealing
Cats can steal items without a skill now, although there is a skill that boosts their chances.
* Cat Skills
Lots of new skills, including ones involving the two of them working together.
* Dual Swords
As the weapon is surprisingly popular with women, they didn't make it require more skill than before; people who aren't good at action games can still just spam the buttons. Good news girls, you suck at games so here is the weapon for you!
* Gunlance
It is now a more aggressive than the lance. The one shot -> quick reload -> smash -> full burst combo is its core attack sequence this time; as I detailed in my TGS report, with the addition of charged fire as well there are a lot more combo options with the Gunlance this time. Although it is difficult to use well and some people might not get along well with it, you can look pretty cool when using it well.
* Gunlance Firing Types
Strength changes depending on firing type. Full Burst gets strong depending on ammo when you fire it, so regular firing type with its large ammo capacity is good for FB. Single shots are strong with spread firing so charge shot is worth using. And the big firing type gives stronger Dragon's Breath.
* Hunting Horn
This one has changed the most. Closer to the original idea of fighting while playing; although you can hang back and play like before, too.
* Bow
Once you get good with the arching shot you should be able to fire it off without even using aiming. There are three types (determined by bow type); wide, which covers a wide area, narrow, which allows pinpoint firing and explosive, which blows up on landing.
* Other weapons
Tweaks have been made to every weapon to make them more fun to play with. E.g. SnS can now do into its whole combo just from O button after a draw attack.
* Starting Weapons
The Yukumo Village weapons are all designed to look like something maybe used around the village, too - the GS is a large tree saw, and the lance has (moving!) snippers on the end for clipping branches. There are going to be lots of other weapons with gimmicks like this (DRILL LANCE!)
* Jinouga
The poster boy; something new in his design, attacks and how to approach him. The scene where he first appears is designed to surprise you. He has two principle points; acrobatic movement, and the ability to collect up lightening bugs to enter his electrically charged state. He doesn't seem that hard to start with, but once he gets charged everything changes, (which I can testify to after fighting him at TGS). Rather than say, Rajang, who gets stronger and faster when powered up, the concept with Jinouga is that the rhythm of his attacks changes.
* Rangrotola (armadillo)
Designed to be a pain in the @ss. When he shows up while you are fighting something else you are meant to think, "Oh crap, he's here too." Designed as the tutorial monster for status affects, they wanted to make him interesting too, so he has some tricky moves.
* Happulubokka (desert big mouth)
How to get him to come out of the sand is a big point in fighting him. Once you get accustomed to him there are a variety of ways to approach hunting him. He seems hard to start with but you need to using items. Once you know how to fight him everything changes.
* Dobolbelk (club tail)
Just a fun monster. If you are in a group and he starts spinning everyone panics! His idea comes from "what would happen if a monster didn't just attack with its tail, but rotated?"
* Aoashira (bear)
Likes honey and has strong front paws. The Kukku style monster, teaching hunters how to fight larger monsters.
* Ulukususu (rabbit)
The tutorial monster for fast types. Has ranged attacks too, not only spitting but also throwing things.
* Other monsters
For the Tri monsters, I looked them over and for the ones I thought "I would have done it this way," we changed them. They should feel a bit new and different.
